10 EPIC Free Synth Plugins You Need for Sound Design 🎹

[Music] [Music] howdy doody buckaroonies i recently made a video about 10 free plugins for sound design that did really well for some reason and today i wanted to make a follow-up and focus on synthesizers so in today's video i wanted to share with you guys 10 of my favorite free synthesizer plugins for sound design this would be things like making loop libraries or sample packs for the music industry working in the film and game industry doing sound design or maybe you just want to get into this industry and don't want to spend a small fortune on plugins to make it happen or you simply can't afford to i've used these synths myself over the years and i actually still use a few of them today because they're just really good and even stack up to a lot of the expensive paid options this list is presented in no particular order today and obviously there are way more than 10 free synthesizers out there so if you have some recommendations as well feel free to leave those down in the comments and help everyone out if you want to grab any of these synths for yourself you can find links to all of these down in the description below if you use these synths to create some cool new music feel free to share it with me because i always love to check out what you guys are working on and if you're ready to share your track with the world why not check out my friends over at distrokid distrokit is an all-in-one digital distribution platform for the modern musician it's only 20 bucks a year for unlimited uploads and it's insanely easy to use and get your music out there to all of the major retailers in the known universe all you need to do is log in upload your song drag in your artwork and you're ready to go in minutes there's also the really cool hyper follow tool to help build up your fan base and promote your music and there's even cool little meme generators to get baby yoda to play your song which is pretty awesome if you're ready to get your music out there today you can use my vip code which is linked down in the description below to save yourself seven percent off your first year and i get a small kickback as well so it's a great way to get your music out there and help support the channel so i can make more videos like this one with all that out of the way let's dive in and check out some free synths first up here we have surge from vember audio and surge actually used to be a paid plugin but it's now free and also fully open source now i know i just said that this video is in no particular order but i had to show this synth first because if you download anything from this video it needs to be surge this in my opinion represents one of the best synths that money just can't buy because it's free surge packs a whole lot of features under the hood here we have three oscillators with two layers so a total of six these oscillators can handle everything from virtual analog and subtractive synthesis to the fm oscillators there's also wavetable mode there's audio inputs you can use it as a vocoder you can also fm any of the oscillator types with the fm routing there's dual filters there's a bunch of really great effects there's oscillator drift to give you those kind of classic analogy type of things it also supports mpe which is just an insane amount of features for something that's free surge here is basically everything you need in a synthesizer in one go so absolutely go download this thing [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] next up here is a bit of an oldie but a goodie this is dext from digital suburban dext is open source it's a free fm synthesizer that's very closely based on the dx7 which is one of the most iconic fm synthesizers of all time the ui is a bit small a bit hard to work with especially if you're not really familiar with fm synthesis and stuff but this is extremely powerful and a lot of fun if you have a dx7 you can also use this as a librarian for your dx7 patches which is kind of neat this synth does require a relatively good working knowledge of fm synthesis and setting up fm patches but once you do understand fm synthesis and really dive into this synth it's incredibly powerful and a lot of fun [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] here we have something relatively new which is pendulate from newfangled audio this is a really fun little mono synth that also offers mpe support so if you have an mpe controller you can use this to create some cool kind of interactive patches that are a really unique thing because this is based on west coast synthesis which is something i don't really see a whole lot of in the vst world and it's pretty cool the user interface is nice and easy to work with everything's laid out here modulation is easy just click something and then assign it by moving it over and clicking and dragging the little mod box here i guess is what i would call it all around when you pair this up with some solid effects it is a damn good synth pendulate also has its bigger brother called generate and i'm going to be doing a video on the channel about that very soon because these are really cool synthesizers these are great for making wave tables they're great for modern cutting edge sounds they're really good honestly for like trailer and cinematic stuff either sound effects or like trailer music it just sounds massive and it's a lot of fun to play with [Music] um [Music] [Music] next up here i wanted to include exact light from sonic bits because this is sort of like dext but just a bit more of a modern take on fm synthesis with a much more friendly user interface this thing has a much more friendly ui especially for beginners so if you're not familiar with fm synthesis this is a really great way to get into it and understand how and why fm works and the types of sounds you can get out of it this thing actually goes a little bit deeper than dext as well because in the waveforms we actually get more than just a sine wave the saw square and triangle as well as a couple of tx modeled waveforms so these are from the tx series from yamaha which was another fm synth it was just a rack mount unit and they are pretty highly regarded so this is a really good solution i think to getting into fm synthesis and it's capable of a whole lot of sounds one of the great parts about this i think as well as the waveform display over here which updates in real time so if we update our waveforms maybe we go in here and change the ratio or the offset maybe even the phase and detune these waveforms we can actually see in real time what we're doing and how it's impacting the final outcome which i think is a very powerful thing to learn fm synthesis because fm is pretty complicated personally i really like using this to create wave tables it's also a really good solution for fm and all things fm from the more modern cutting edge side to the kind of classic synth wavy fm stuff so it's a really good addition to your arsenal all around [Music] [Music] continuing on with the kind of faux analog theme here we have ob xd the virtual analog synthesizer this gives you that lush classic oberheimy ish sound for free it's not the best emulation of the oberheim stuff ever but it is a really good synthesizer i think honestly one of the best parts about this synth is the filter section here i've got this on high quality mode and 24 decibel per octave mode there is also a band pass button here and the multi knob which allows you to blend between low pass and high pass which can give you some really nice morphing pad textures but this filter just sounds really good one of the other cool features down in the lower right here is the voice variation you can actually pan out the individual voices so you can pan out all eight of them into individual parts of the stereo field which is honestly kind of cool and can give you just that massive sound without a whole lot of effort especially paired with like a good reverb this thing sounds damn good [Music] [Music] wow [Music] wow [Music] here we've got my dear old friend tyrell n6 this is from he which are the people behind diva which is one of the most highly regarded analog synth emulations ever to exist and this packs a little bit of that diva magic in a free package that's not quite as deep but very useful much like the other yuhi sensor uhe i always forget what it is this packs a lot of character into one pretty small package this thing sounds absolutely incredible it has a very rich and full sound and is capable of just about everything you need when it comes to that big warm analog thing all around it's not the most flexible synth ever but this is really amazing for creating classic sounds and adding some vibe to a track or just adding that vintage feeling to whatever project you might be working on all around i think this thing is very much worth downloading if you're into classic sounds and classic synthesizers or need something like that for a project it's just a really good solution for that [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] in front of me here we have toonfish 4. this is a little bit of a weird option but it's very cool and actually has a lot of cool stuff behind it this synth here was developed to be as small and efficient as possible as part of a competition to build an audio visual presentation that's under 64 kilobytes in size this is what's known as the demo scene which is a really cool thing with a lot of really brilliant people involved and i think you should really check it out i've linked some more information about the story behind this synth down in the description below i really recommend you go read it and check out the final result it is incredibly impressive tunefish is pretty unique in the way it approaches making sounds which makes it a lot of fun to explore and just a bit more of an off-the-wall solution to making sounds toonfish is capable of a massive array of sounds everything from your classic sounds to making wave tables with to weird sci-fi one shots or weird cinematic effects it's just really worthwhile to play around with toonfish is pretty intuitive to work with it's extremely cpu efficient and it's very very very powerful [Music] yes [Music] now [Applause] [Music] next up here we have synth one which is like one of the most classic freeware synthesizers ever this thing is like kilobytes in size and is actually one of the most downloaded plugins ever in the history of all time it's not really a mind-blowing synth and as i'm sure you can tell by the look of it it's not all that deep but this thing can run even on the most potato as i'm sure you can tell by the interface it's a bit old it was actually made all the way back in 2002 and it's not really the most deep synthesizer out there but this thing is pretty powerful in its own right it's very usable it's extremely cpu efficient and will run on even the most potatoey of potato computers so if you have a pretty low spec system and you need something that's pretty powerful and flexible this is a good solution to get you started if you're looking to learn the basics of synthesis as well this is a pretty good solution because it offers fm as well as ring modulation there are like seven gajillion free presets out there that you can use to kind of get to grips with everything it has a really nice clean sound it's not all that exciting or hyped but it's not really meant to be it's just meant to be a synthesizer that makes synth sounds [Music] foreign [Music] these next two are kind of bundled into one because they're kind of just part of the same thing here we've got towel baseline this is basically your classic mono base synth this does a really good job of all the classic acid baselines and acid leads and whatever in just one compact plug-in it's a little hard to see on a modern screen because the ui is pretty small it's not the most advanced thing ever but it is very usable it's really great for those classic like psytrancy acid leads and whatever and is cool just for making some interesting kind of classic one [Music] shots oh [Music] [Music] next up is the other really cool towel plug and i wanted to give a shout out to which is towel noisemaker this is a really great intro to synthesis and is actually a pretty powerful little thing this synth is nice and easy to use you can see there's only a handful of controls the second section here has a filter adsr we have an envelope editor which you can go in and plunk in as many points as you want so it's actually a pretty advanced little envelope editor and you can even control the fm and ring mod with it so that's a lot of fun to experiment with there's the control section down here which offers just some pretty basic stuff all around a synth worth having all around i think this is definitely something worth having especially if you just don't have anything else and it can be a bit of a fun little box to play around with and i think you would be really surprised at the amount of sounds you can get out of this [Music] so [Music] next up here we have the pg-8x which is an amazing sounding plug and this is based on the roland jx-8p which is kind of your classic mid-80s synthesizer this plug-in represents just about everything you need for your retrowave synthwave vaporwave outrun and mall core needs it is just that classic sound if you love classic synths or do anything involving retro-ish sounds go download this [Music] synthesizer [Music] [Applause] [Music] rounding off the list here i wanted to put in zebralette which is one part of zebra two if you do this times four you basically have zebra two which is one of probably the more powerful synths out there and is very very highly regarded this one little box while it is a little bit ugly is damn powerful there are a lot of really cool modes to manipulate your waveforms and go through here and start messing with stuff it's just a really interesting experience all around zebralette offers a lot of really cool ways to manipulate the waveforms and scroll through them and there's some different waveform modes here it's just a really unique experience that's kind of its own thing down here in the mod section as well there is an absolutely ridiculous amount of modulation and stuff you can apply so this is a little bit of a weird synth it's a little bit dated the ui is pretty small but it is incredibly powerful and definitely worth playing with zebralette is great for some really straightforward sounds as well as some really weird and out there sounds it's got a whole lot of features so it's worth sitting down and kind of skimming through the manual it's also got a good amount of presets as well which i recommend checking out because the presets do teach you a lot about what zebralette can do and how you can make it do those things [Music] [Music] finally to cap this video off i just wanted to give a couple of honorable mentions of other things i think are worth checking out first up is something really really new this is odin 2 which is still a work in progress so i don't really know how representative this is of kind of the final vision but it's pretty cool and worth checking out the ui might be a bit hard to see especially on bigger displays but it's pretty straightforward there's an analog oscillator wavetable oscillator multi-oscillator which is actually pretty fun vector oscillator so you can do some like vector synthesis stuff with some wave tables and other waveforms there's also the chiptune oscillator fm oscillator phase mod oscillator noise oscillator wave draw oscillator so you can go in here and draw on your own waveform in real time chip draw oscillator which is more of a stair-stepped version of that and the spec draw which is a spectral harmonic editor thing which is a whole lot of features for a free synthesizer you also get a couple basic effects delay phaser chorus and flanger there's the distortion here with a couple of different modes it's honestly worth checking out i'm excited to see where this one goes especially because it has an xy pad which is something i don't see enough of in synthesizers i really always like an xy thing there's also a good amount of mod matrix slots there's a pretty decent preset library and an arpeggiator so another really good kind of all-in-one little box to make sounds with [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] here is voltage modular 2 nucleus edition now this is not normally free this is actually paid but it's currently free as of the time of making this video and i'm not sure how long that deal will last it may be free it may not full disclosure i work very closely with the folks at cherry audio and voltage modular but that in no way affects my opinion about voltage modular i loved voltage modular since i got it i continue to love it and that's why i work with them like i said this may or may not be free when you see this video so that's why it's kind of here in the honorable mentions but i really really like voltage modular this is really awesome there are a lot of really cool modules out there both paid and free i highly recommend you check it out [Music] finally to round off this list here we have ais player with swatches this is kind of just a preset browser it comes with a lot of different sounds they're really great for making loops and other little things the only downside is you just can't really tweak them this is basically a stripped down version of something like i guess arturia's analog lab i hope in the future though they maybe add some macros so you can have a little bit of control over the sounds the ui is a little bit blah and navigating it can be kind of hard because there's not really a great way to view the different categories and stuff but it is worth checking out just to have some extra sounds because it sounds really good like all the aas stuff and gives you just a little bit of a bigger sonic palette to pull from if you're working on a project [Music] and there you have it a bunch of free synthesizers i think are really worth checking out and really worth your time so i hope you found this video helpful i hope you find these synths useful and i hope you get some mileage out of them as always be sure to like and subscribe thanks for watching and i will see you guys again soon [Music] you

Channel: Venus Theory

Views: 406,780

Rating: 4.9503822 out of 5

Keywords: Venus Theory, sound design, free synth vst, free synth vst plugins, best free synth plugins, best free synth vst, free vst plugins, fl studio, ableton, bitwig, free plugins, free plugins 2020, best free plugins, free synth plugins, free synthesizer vst, free synthesizer plugin

Id: K4LnW2hOAus

Length: 33min 12sec (1992 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 24 2020